Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Barclays Bank Über Alles

"Barclays Bank obtained a court order early today banning the Guardian from publishing documents which showed how the bank set up companies to avoid hundreds of millions of pounds in tax.

The gagging order was granted by Mr Justice Ouseley after Barclays complained about seven documents on the Guardian's website which had been leaked to the Liberal Democrats' deputy leader, Vince Cable.

The internal Barclays memos – leaked by a Barclays whistleblower – showed executives from SCM, Barclays's structured capital markets division, seeking approval for a 2007 plan to sink more than $16bn (£11.4bn) into US loans."Barclays gags Guardian over tax

Copies of the original memos outlining how the bank avoided paying tax to the British government can be found and downloaded from Wikileaks.

UPDATE

Unfortunately, the Wikileaks site has been taken down by the Australian government but you can still find the memos here at www.techcrunch.com.